In honor of today’s International Human Rights Day, Joshua Oppenheimer, the director of “The Act of Killing” and his production team are releasing his second documentary examining Indonesia’s 1965 massacres, “The Look of Silence” (titled “Senyap” in Indonesian) for free online. You can watch it on Youtube or download the entire film from the film’s official website.
Unlike the “Act of Killing”, which explored the violence of 1965 through the eyes of the killers themselves, “The Look of Silence” is told from the perspective of Adi, a man whose brother was a victim of the massacres. Adi is an optometrist who eyes are opened to the truth of what happened to his brother and seeks to learn more by confronting the men responsible for his death.
“The Look of Silence” was released in 2014 and has won over 45 international awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Gotham Award for Best Documentary of 2015, It has also been shortlisted in the Best Feature Documentary category for the 2015 Oscars
The film has had a few showings in Indonesia but never received a wide release. Many of the showings that were planned, such as the one scheduled for this year’s Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, were censored by the government or shut down due to public pressure.
Hopefully the government will not attempt to censor the online versions that Oppenheimer has just released. It’s a film that everybody in Indonesia absolutely needs to see.
“This is the first film in history in which survivors confront perpetrators of atrocities while the perpetrators remain in power,” Oppenheimer said as quoted by Indiewire. “By giving the film to all Indonesians, we hope to support the national conversation so urgently needed to end this terrifying impunity, and make healing possible.”
(BTW both the Youtube version and the version that can be downloaded from the films site are Indonesian language only, but English speakers that download the film can download the English subtitles here)
You can also watch all of the “The Act of Killing” on Youtube or download it from the film’s official site.
